Shoror - Armenian Folk Music for Guitar

Bohemio - Guitar Masterworks of Agustin Barrios

Based on his own meticulous transcriptions, Kolanian presents with this album a fascinating meditation on some choice Armenian folk tunes that is the fruit of many years of study, reflection and refinement. Owing to an almost instinctive feel for this music, he bestows each individual piece with a unique touch that has been shaped by his solid grounding in the traditions of the Spanish guitar, his devotion to the music of J. S. Bach and, of course, his natural affinity for Komitas.

An album dedicated to the guitar masterworks of celebrated South American composer Agustin Barrios. Although rooted in large part in the popular idiom, Barrios's compositions come adorned in all the harmonic and contra-puntal sophistication of classical music. Indeed, it is this very combination of these two worlds, popular and classical, that makes his music so appealing to a varied group of listeners. Given his mastery of both idioms and his technical prowess already on display in his earlier recordings, Kolanian offers a poetic, well thought-out and highly individualized rendition of these masterpieces.